Karl Hess: Presidential Speechwriter Turned Homesteader

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PLOWBOY: That's a big jump for a John Bircher to make almost as big as the one you've taken from speech writer for the Republican Party to the ideas you've been expressing here. That's one big trip, Karl. So big that I'm going to ask you to level with me and tell me-no holds barred-what really triggered your change in values. Did you read a copy of Chairman Mao's little red book? Were you kidnapped by rabid left-wingers and brainwashed for a month? What happened?

HESS: I bought a motorcycle.

PLOWBOY: You bought a motorcycle?

HESS: Yeah, and it completely cracked the social structure in which I lived. My neighbors were absolutely horrified. I wasn't rich enough to be eccentric, you see and in the suburbs you're not supposed to be medium-rich and ride a motorcycle.

Actually it wasn't just the bike that got 'em so much as the fact that I rode it wearing a suit and necktie. That really freaked 'em out. Nobody would talk to me for a long time they just kind of looked at me from behind the drapes as I went by. Finally a neighbor or two came over with concerned looks on their faces and said they really wished I wouldn't ride my bike anymore. It was all very childish.

PLOWBOY: Did you have a beard at the time?

HESS: No. Just the motorcycle which I rode all dressed up in a business suit and tie. I was straight as an arrow. So, after my "friends" had had their talks with me, I decided to push the issue a little: I stopped wearing the necktie.

And that was the end. When you dress funny-I mean by doing something really weird like wearing an open-collar shirt-out in the suburbs, you've had it. You're out. You simply are not taken seriously anymore.

You can be an alcoholic that's OK. You can be a thief, and your neighbors will just adjust to the idea. And that really happens, too every suburb has some sort of experience with this phenomenon. Someone will be arrested for a major crime-a white collar crime-and the people who live around him will still go to the country club with him and slap him on the shoulder and ask if he's going to beat the rap. And they'll point him out to visitors with admiration and say, "Ole Joe here got away with a big mortgage swindle."

But-at least in 1964-they wouldn't tolerate a guy who rode a motorcycle. Especially without a necktie.

PLOWBOY: And that social ostracism by your good Republican neighbors drove you into the arms of the New Left.

HESS: Well it wasn't quite as dramatic as all that. But, thanks to the incident, I saw for the first time-and very clearly-that my suburban neighbors didn't care whether or not I was capable or honest or loving what they cared about was how I looked. And I didn't like that superficial attitude.

So I went to live in the Adams-Morgan area of Washington, D.C., where I worked with the Institute of Policy Studies. This is a scholarly organization which is often attacked as left-wing. Actually, it's more akin to the New Left, which advocates a much more decentralized society than any other political faction.

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